Introduction
THIS BOOK is a guide to the practice of centering the mind. There are two sections: The first deals almost exclusively with the mind. But because the well-being of the mind depends to some extent on the body, I have included a second section [Method 2] that shows how to use the body to benefit the mind.
From what I’ve observed in my own practice, there is only one path that is short, easy, effective, and pleasant, and at the same time has hardly anything to lead you astray: the path of keeping the breath in mind, the same path the Lord Buddha himself used with such good results. I hope that you won’t make things difficult for yourself by being hesitant or uncertain, by taking this or that teaching from here or there; and that, instead, you’ll earnestly set your mind on getting in touch with your own breath and following it as far as it can take you. From there, you will enter the stage of liberating insight, leading to the mind itself. Ultimately, pure knowing—buddha—will stand out on its own. That’s when you’ll reach an attainment trustworthy and sure. In other words, if you let the breath follow its own nature, and the mind its own nature, the results of your practice will without a doubt be all that you hope for.
Ordinarily, the nature of the heart, if it isn’t trained and put into order, is to fall in with preoccupations that are stressful and bad. This is why we have to search for a principle—a Dhamma—with which to train ourselves if we hope for happiness that’s stable and secure. If our hearts have no inner principle, no center in which to dwell, we’re like a person without a home. Homeless people have nothing but hardship. The sun, wind, rain, and dirt are bound to leave them constantly soiled because they have nothing to act as shelter. To practice centering the mind is to build a home for yourself: Momentary concentration (khaṇika samādhi) is like a house roofed with thatch; threshold concentration (upācāra samādhi), a house roofed with tile; and fixed penetration (appanā samādhi), a house built out of brick. Once you have a home, you’ll have a safe place to keep your valuables. You won’t have to put up with the hardships of watching over them, the way a person who has no place to keep his valuables has to go sleeping in the open, exposed to the sun and rain, to guard those valuables—and even then his valuables aren’t really safe.
So it is with the uncentered mind: It goes searching for good from other areas, letting its thoughts wander around in all kinds of concepts and preoccupations. Even if those thoughts are good, we still can’t say that we’re safe. We’re like a woman with plenty of jewelry: If she dresses up in her jewels and goes wandering around, she’s not safe at all. Her wealth might even lead to her own death. In the same way, if our hearts aren’t trained through meditation to gain inner stillness, even the virtues we’ve been able to develop will deteriorate easily because they aren’t yet securely stashed away in the heart. To train the mind to attain stillness and peace, though, is like keeping your valuables in a strongbox.
This is why most of us don’t get any good from the good we do. We let the mind fall under the sway of its various preoccupations. These preoccupations are our enemies, because there are times when they can cause the virtues we’ve already developed to wither away. The mind is like a blooming flower: If wind and insects disturb the flower, it may never have a chance to give fruit. The flower here stands for the stillness of the mind on the path; the fruit, for the happiness of the path’s fruition. If our stillness of mind and happiness are constant, we have a chance to attain the ultimate good we all hope for.
The ultimate good is like the heartwood of a tree. Other ‘goods’ are like the buds, branches, and leaves. If we haven’t trained our hearts and minds, we’ll meet with things that are good only on the external level. But if our hearts are pure and good within, everything external will follow in becoming good as a result. Just as our hand, if it’s clean, won’t soil what it touches, but if it’s dirty, will spoil even the cleanest cloth; in the same way, if the heart is defiled, everything is defiled. Even the good we do will be defiled, for the highest power in the world—the sole power giving rise to all good and evil, pleasure and pain—is the heart. The heart is like a god. Good, evil, pleasure, and pain come entirely from the heart. We could even call the heart a creator of the world, because the peace and continued well-being of the world depend on the heart. If the world is to be destroyed, it will be because of the heart. So we should train this most important part of the world to be centered as a foundation for its wealth and well-being.
Centering the mind is a way of gathering together all its skillful potentials. When these potentials are gathered in the right proportions, they’ll give you the strength you need to destroy your enemies: all your defilements and unwise mental states. You have discernment that you’ve trained and made wise in the ways of good and evil, of the world and the Dhamma. Your discernment is like gunpowder. But if you keep your gunpowder for long without putting it into bullets—a centered mind—it’ll go damp and moldy. Or if you’re careless and let the fires of greed, anger, or delusion overcome you, your gunpowder may flame up in your hands. So don’t delay. Put your gunpowder into bullets so that whenever your enemies—your defilements—make an attack, you’ll be able to shoot them right down.
Whoever trains the mind to be centered gains a refuge. A centered mind is like a fortress. Discernment is like a weapon. To practice centering the mind is to secure yourself in a fortress, and so is something very worthwhile and important.
Virtue, the first part of the path, and discernment, the last, aren’t especially difficult. But keeping the mind centered, which is the middle part, takes some effort because it’s a matter of forcing the mind into shape. Admittedly, centering the mind, like placing bridge pilings in the middle of a river, is something difficult to do. But once the mind is firmly in place, it can be very useful in developing virtue and discernment. Virtue is like placing pilings on the near shore of the river; discernment, like placing them on the far shore. But if the middle pilings—a centered mind—aren’t firmly in place, how will you ever be able to bridge the flood of suffering?
There is only one way we can properly reach the qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, and that’s through the practice of mental development (bhāvanā). When we develop the mind to be centered and still, discernment can arise. Discernment here refers not to ordinary discernment, but to the insight that comes solely from dealing directly with the mind. For example, the ability to remember past lives, to know where living beings are reborn after death, and to cleanse the heart of the fermentations (āsava) of defilement: These three forms of intuition—termed ñāṇa-cakkhu, the eye of the mind—can arise for people who train themselves in the area of the heart and mind. But if we go around searching for knowledge from sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations mixed together with concepts, it’s as if we were studying with the Six Masters, and so we can’t clearly see the truth—just as the Buddha, while he was studying with the Six Masters, wasn’t able to gain awakening. He then turned his attention to his own heart and mind, and went off to practice on his own, keeping track of his breath as his first step and going all the way to the ultimate goal. As long as you’re still searching for knowledge from your six senses, you’re studying with the Six Masters. But when you focus your attention on the breath—which exists in each of us—to the point where the mind settles down and is centered, you’ll have the chance to meet with the real thing: buddha, pure knowing.
Some people believe that they don’t have to practice centering the mind, that they can attain release through discernment (paññā-vimutti) by working at discernment alone. This simply isn’t true. Both release through discernment and release through stillness of mind (ceto-vimutti) are based on centering the mind. They differ only in degree. Like walking: Ordinarily, a person doesn’t walk on one leg alone. Whichever leg is heavier is simply a matter of personal habits and traits.
Release through discernment begins by pondering various events and aspects of the world until the mind slowly comes to rest and, once it’s still, gives rise intuitively to liberating insight (vipassanā-ñāṇa): clear and true understanding in terms of the four noble truths (ariya-sacca). In release through stillness of mind, though, there’s not much pondering involved. The mind is simply forced to be quiet until it attains the stage of fixed penetration. That’s where intuitive insight will arise, enabling it to see things for what they are. This is release through stillness of mind: Concentration comes first, discernment later.
A person with a wide-ranging knowledge of the texts—well-versed in their letter and meaning, capable of clearly and correctly explaining various points of doctrine—but with no inner center for the mind, is like a pilot flying about in an airplane with a clear view of the clouds and stars but no sense of where the landing strip is. He’s headed for trouble. If he flies higher, he’ll run out of air. All he can do is keep flying around until he runs out of fuel and comes crashing down in the savage wilds.
Some people, even though they are highly educated, are no better than savages in their behavior. This is because they’ve gotten carried away, up in the clouds. Some people—taken with what they feel to be the high level of their own learning, ideas, and opinions—won’t practice centering the mind because they feel it beneath them. They think they deserve to go straight to release through discernment instead. Actually, they’re heading straight to disaster, like the airplane pilot who has lost sight of the landing strip.
To practice centering the mind is to build a landing strip for yourself. Then, when discernment comes, you’ll be able to attain release safely.
This is why we have to develop all three parts of the path—virtue, concentration, and discernment—if we want to be complete in our practice of the religion. Otherwise, how can we say that we know the four noble truths?—because the path, to qualify as the noble path, has to be composed of virtue, concentration, and discernment. If we don’t develop it within ourselves, we can’t know it. And if we don’t know, how can we let go?
Most of us, by and large, like getting results but don’t like laying the groundwork. We may want nothing but goodness and purity, but if we haven’t completed the groundwork, we’ll have to keep on being poor. Like people who are fond of money but not of work: How can they be good, solid citizens? When they feel the pinch of poverty, they’ll turn to corruption and crime. In the same way, if we aim at results in the field of the religion but don’t like doing the work, we’ll have to continue being poor. And as long as our hearts are poor, we’re bound to go searching for goodness in other areas—greed, gain, status, pleasure, and praise, the baits of the world—even though we know better. This is because we don’t truly know, which means simply that we aren’t true in what we do.
The truth of the path is always true. Virtue is something true, concentration is true, discernment is true, release is true. But if we aren’t true, we won’t meet with anything true. If we aren’t true in practicing virtue, concentration, and discernment, we’ll end up only with things that are fake and imitation. And when we make use of things fake and imitation, we’re headed for trouble. So we have to be true in our hearts. When our hearts are true, we’ll come to savor the taste of the Dhamma, a taste surpassing all the tastes of the world.
This is why I have put together the following two guides for keeping the breath in mind.
Peace.
Phra Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo
WAT BOROMNIVAS
BANGKOK, 1953
